I'm sure this is already obvious to you, but make sure to keep willpower high. That will help with how many spells you can cast. Also, Leilana has a bard song that helps with mana and stam regen.

And Morrigan does actually come with a lot of Entropy spells if that changes anything at all for your decision. I think she starts with the first two frost spells, mind blast, and the first spells of ALL the entropy spell lines.

Arcane, from what I've heard and from just looking at the skills, appears to be something that would be good for all mages to max out eventually. A bonus to spellpower on the 4th skill is NICE!

And I think that lightning can be very useful. The first skill might not be too awesome, but I think lightning does some very good damage later on. I'm not sure if there's a stun/electrocute effect - there MIGHT be?

Obviously, if you want to reroll go for it! I just think it's very hard to make a bad character in a bioware game (unless you do something like pick all tier one spells or something weird like that). I've acquired a lot more party members recently, and having the right types of classes in my party comp is really increasing effectiveness. It's possible you might find after getting a couple more diverse members(and Morrigan, Leilana, Rabbit (the Dog), and Sten all join your party very fast after the battle if you do things right) you might find that you're having a much easier time. It's also not like you can't add some more CC in there later - you have how many more levels to go!

My party comp right now is my main (Mage with some CC, damage, and a heal) , Alastair (tanking and overpowering goodness), Morrigan (extra spell support), and Leilana (bard song + pick lock) - OMG WHY IS SHE MELEEING? STOP IT! YOU'RE AN ARCHER.

I will most likely drop Leilana later for Zevran since I think he's awesome, and he'll fill my rogue spot.

I don't want to give anything away, but there's a pretty severe bug in Redcliffe that you guys might want to know about.

There's a scripted battle instance at night in Redcliffe where waves of mobs are attacking you and the villagers. There are two locations you have to defend: 1) the hill and 2) in front of the chantry.

At the hill, DO NOT GO INTO THE GREEN MIST. I've heard this is a major culprit of the bug. Throughout the event, STAY AS CLOSE TO THE NPCS AS POSSIBLE. Wandering away from them can cause the event to become unrepairably bugged. After a few waves, a soldier should come running up telling you they need help down the hill in front of the chantry. If this does not happen, you may need to reload your saved game (thank GOD there's an autosave when you load into the event).

Once you venture down the hill, you enter scripted event number 2. Try to stay WITHIN THE BARRICADES if possible. After a few very difficult waves, they should stop coming. Ideally, the event should be done. It was not for me. Mobs spawn at different points down by the water. If your event hasn't finished, run ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE down by the water. Hit TAB to help you see enemy target names. Once you find all the stray mobs, the event should end.

I searched down by the water for FOREVER and didn't find the last mob that I apparently needed to finish the event. He must've gotten stuck in the water, or entirely in a building or something. I had to reload my autosave game (right as the event starts) and do the entire thing again. The second time after the mobs stopped coming, I found two bugged mobs hanging out by the buildings. After killing the second one, the event ended.

They'll patch a fix in for this soon, I hope. In the meantime, good luck. Spent a good hour freaking out that everything had been ruined and I would have to restart. Thank GOD for autosave!

Oh - also, I would recommend saving between the hill and the chantry before you enter the second scripted combat event. It's very possible you might wipe, and you don't want to do the first battle again, especially when the second might bug and you'll have to reload!

Does anyone know where to get more bag space? apparently you could get more in Ostagar...but that's too late. Supposedly you can also buy one from the merchant in Lotharing? But he doesn't offer anything to me. Anyone know??

The item you buy is a backpack. I THINK the innkeeper or whatever in the inn in Lotherling will sell you one.

On a sidenote, I found a way to force Leilana to ranged-attack!

Self/Any --> Swap to ranged weapon.

The biggest problem with this is that I ran into a fun bit of AI sadness. When Leilana was surrounded by mobs, she REALLY wanted to switch to her melee set, but then her tactic kicked in and told her to swap to the ranged weapon. For some reason, I don't think she could attack the mobs all around her so close with her bow, so she stood there swapping back and forth over and over. Made me giggle a little bit.